Cooking and Cleaning Terrapin
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the terrapin
Cut off the head of the terrapin and soak it in cold water for 30 minutes.
Drop the terrapin into boiling water and cook for 10 minutes.
Pour off the water and cover the terrapin with cold water until cool enough to handle.
Rub the nails and black skin from the legs with a towel.
Wash the terrapin thoroughly and place it in a stew pan with enough boiling water to cover.
Cook and clean
Cook until the flesh is tender and the joints can be broken with slight pressure.
Remove from the water and let it cool slightly.
Place the terrapin on its back and remove the under shell carefully.
Take out the liver, gall, bladder, and sand-bag, being careful not to break the gall.
Remove any eggs, if present, and drop them into cold water.
Finish
Finely chop all the meat, saving any water that collects in the shells.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Terrapin
- Provides the main meat, which becomes tender through long simmering in water.
The step that matters
Taking out the gall bladder without breaking it. If the gall is broken, its bitter fluid can spread through the meat and spoil the flavour, so it must be removed whole and carefully.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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